THE BARONS & FALL OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT 389

Socialists would, said the President., be a responsibility that neither
patriotism nor conscience would allow him to take. That was plain
enough, but not the end of everything. Then the old soldier, to
Papen's consternation, went beyond his brief. As if he were
reproving an unsatisfactory subaltern he said that he regretted
that Hitler had not seen fit to implement his promise to recognize
the presidial system., but if he would not., then, of course, there
was no more to be said. Completely taken aback. Hitler's rhetoric
for once failed him. He managed to get out a stammering threat
that the Papen cabinet would have to reckon with the determined
hostility of the National Socialist party and that the nation would
judge between them. He was allowed to get no further. The
President, now thoroughly enjoying himself, peremptorily de-
clined to listen to a speech in the orderly room. Interrupting
Hitler unceremoniously, he proceeded to read him a sharp lesson
in discipline. He warned him earnestly to conduct that opposition
like a gentleman and to remember his duty as a German subject
—a closing note which Schleichcr himself could hardly have
bettered.

Dazed and furious, Hitler returned to plunge into one of his
fits of angry depression and to spread utter dismay among his
staff, By the evening the news was all over Berlin. Making the
best of a bad business Papen proceeded to rub it in and the short
communique ht issued left the humiliation of the Leader in no doubt
at all. The angry denial of the National Socialist press department
was met by an amplified and even more damaging version of the
interview which stripped the last shreds from the Leader's defence
and showed him contemptuously dismissed. The "national con-
centration front" was in ruins; the breach between Papen and
Hitler open.

For a moment the nation was too staggered by the news either
to be relieved or indignant, and then there came a wave of appre-
hension that affected everyone. The National Socialists asked
now, at last, what would the Reichswehr do; the rest of the nation

chancellorship. But the mere mention of Mussolini in 1932 was enough5 the
President did not probably remember the "national front" nature of Mussolini's
first cabinet^ but he had no mind to be extinguished like Italy's king.